When installing Tinycore on a hard drive, it is ideal to have a swap partition. However, some people may choose not to have a swap partition in a computer with large RAM. Computers with small RAM should have a swap partition. To have a swap partition, you need to set up partitions before beginning installation. If you don't want a swap partition, you can skip this section.

Before partitioning the drive, save a copy of all files you want to keep. All files on the drive will be lost.

An easy way for new users to partition a drive is using GParted. People connected to the internet may install GParted in Tinycore, and use it for partitioning. Others may download the latest version of Parted Magic, and use it for partitioning.

Start the GParted Partition Editor.

If you have more than one drive in the computer, select the correct drive. If you select the wrong drive, everything on that drive will be lost.

Delete existing partitions.

If you plan to install only Tinycore using the entire hard drive, make an Ext4 partition and a swap partition. It is common practice to make the Ext4 partition first, using all of the space on the hard drive except that left for swap. A suggested size for the swap partition is double the RAM.

Experienced users may use fdisk, mkfs.ext4 and mkswap, instead of GParted.

Select the location of the tinycore.gz file. It will be in /mnt/sdc/boot. If not sdc, use the correct drive.

Select Frugal.

If you have partitioned the drive, select Existing Partition. Then select the partition. Warning: If you select the wrong partition, everything on that partition will be lost. Then click on the square preceeding “Mark Partition Active (bootable)” so it becomes ticked.

If you have not partitioned the drive, select Whole Disk. Then select the correct drive. Warning: If you select the wrong drive, everything on that drive will be lost.

Click the Forward arrow.

Formatting Options: Select ext4.

Click the Forward arrow.

Boot options. Type:

opt=sda1 home=sda1 norestore

If not installing to sda1, change sda1 to the correct partition.

For foreign system language and keymap (in this example german) add additionally

The same installer is used to install Tinycore on a hard drive or a USB drive. When booting from a USB drive, the computer may take some time to read the USB drive. To give it time to read the USB drive, waitusb=5 is included in the boot options. This tells the computer to wait 5 seconds.

When installing to a hard drive, waitusb=5 is included, but is not needed. If this is deleted, Tinycore will start 5 seconds quicker.

To remove this, open the terminal and type:

sudo editor

Open the file /mnt/sda1/boot/extlinux/extlinux.conf. If installed on a partition other than sda1, use the correct partition.

Delete

waitusb=5:UUID=“long-number”

Save the file and close the editor.

Tinycore will now start 5 seconds quicker.

You may also add, modify or remove other boot options using the same method.

3. Another option is to use backup. If you want to use backup, don't include the “norestore” boot option. Then edit /opt/.filetool.lst. If you are using persistent home and opt, delete all references to the home and opt directories. In the version I am using, that is everything. Add a list of files and directories you want backed up to /opt/.filetool.lst.